The present invention pertains to a sectional garage door including a windload reinforcement beam system for one or more of the door sections or panels and a method of installing such reinforcement beams.
Sectional doors and sectional upward acting doors, in particular, present unique engineering requirements. Typically, sectional upward acting garage doors are required to be of lightweight construction while also being required to provide a sturdy closure over a relatively large opening in a vertical wall. One longstanding problem associated with sectional garage doors pertains to the so called windload capability of the door in its closed position, that is the ability to withstand pressure forces acting on the door both inwardly and outwardly due to ambient winds. The ability to withstand expected windloads in door applications wherein long term climate conditions may be changing to frequent aggravated windload conditions, or where expected wind loads are already well known, not only requires new door installations to meet the windload requirements but retrofitting existing doors also presents a problem in the art. Although many sectional garage doors are fabricated of lightweight formed or extruded metal or plastic panels, these panels may not be suitably reinforced against high windloads during fabrication in order to facilitate shipping, handling, to permit storing the panels one on top of the other and to provide the installed weight of the door within door operator power limits. Moreover, the longitudinal or spanwise dimensions of sectional garage doors present a problem in reinforcing the door panels against bending along their longitudinal axes under windloads as well as other operating conditions.
Certain efforts have been attempted to provide longitudinal reinforcing beams mounted on sectional door panels. However, the additional weight provided by these beams aggravates installation procedures and prior art methods of installing beams on door panels after the panels are installed in their working positions also present problems and require extra time and personnel to hold the beams in place while they are fastened to the door panels.
Accordingly, there has been a need to provide an improved door panel reinforcing beam system for sectional doors and a method of installing such beams. It is to these ends that the present invention has been developed.
The present invention provides an improved reinforcing beam system for sectional garage door panels including, in particular, garage door panels for upward acting sectional garage doors.
The present invention also provides an improved method of installing reinforcing beams on sectional garage door panels and the like.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention sectional garage door panels and the like are reinforced by installing longitudinally oriented lightweight beam members on one or more panels of a sectional garage door. The beams are preferably secured to vertical spaced apart stiles or other reinforcing members comprising conventional structural elements of sectional garage door panels. In addition, two or more support brackets are mounted on the sectional garage door panels to support the beam, or beams, respectively. The beams and the brackets may be separately secured to the garage door panels by conventional threaded fasteners and the like. The configurations of the support brackets aid in locating the beams as well as resisting bending and twisting loads imposed on the beams, respectively. Spaced apart gussets may be included as reinforcing members to resist deflection of channel shaped beams, in particular. Various beam cross section configurations are contemplated, such as channels, so-called C-channels, I beams or H beams, box beams and other tubular (cylindrical and otherwise) beams.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, an improved method of installing reinforcing beams on sectional garage door panels and the like is provided. Door panels may be reinforced by installing beams thereon while the panels are in their working positions extending across a door opening and otherwise supported by conventional door guide structure. The improved method alleviates the problems associated with handling door panels which have had heavy beam elements preinstalled before the door panels themselves are installed in the door opening. The beam system and method of installation are particularly advantageous for doors which are already installed in door openings.
Those skilled in the art will further appreciate the above-mentioned advantages and superior features of the invention together with other important aspects thereof upon reading the detailed description which follows in conjunction with the drawings.